Strip club, juice bar combination moving business plans to Gulfport
If anyone was particularly looking forward to a glass of fresh juice while watching exotic dancers -- or football games -- those few people are out of luck.
But entrepeneur Ronald Nance is betting there are a lot more people who would prefer beer over smoothies.
That is, if he can get permission from the city of Gulfport.
In South Mississippi though, that might be an uphill battle -- as Nance has already learned.
He filed his original application -- for a combination juice bar and gentleman's club at the corner of Canal and Tillman roads -- with Harrison County in January.
It would have been the first business of its kind on the Coast, Nance wrote in his application, and the lack of alcohol would have provided a "classy and safe environment for the customers."
It didn't go well.
Harrison County officials tried to figure out whether such a business would be allowed in the county.
The county specifically banned serving alcohol in adult entertainment venues. But the county's ordinances made no mention of strippers sans alcohol.
"The table of uses in the Harrison County Zoning Ordinance does not list anything remotely related to such a business," Virgil Gillespie, an attorney for the Harrison County Planning Commission and Zoning Office, wrote to Nance in January. "I cannot find anything under 'adult entertainment,' 'juice bar,' 'live entertainment,' 'juice bar with adult entertainment' or 'juice bar with live entertainment.'"
While staffers worked, letters started coming in.
At least 21, many from members of Faith Baptist Church, which is 1,700 feet up Canal Road from the proposed location, asked the county to deny the application.
"I feel this type of business has had a part in our county's crisis," one person wrote. "Our future generation is at stake. Please do not allow this to happen in our community."
A public hearing was set for this Thursday and county officials anticipated hundreds of people in attendance.
Then Nance decided to withdraw his application. He hadn't officially done so, as of Monday evening, but he told the Sun Herald he intended to.
He also insisted he wasn't withdrawing because of the opposition.
"It would have been a long, drawn-out process, it would have taken months and months, so I chose to relocate," he said.
Nance is attempting to relocate to Gulfport, where he hopes the city ordinance will be kinder to him than the county was.
Gulfport zoning officials said Nance hadn't yet officially applied but had been in the office to pick up the paperwork.
Whether the venue will be allowed in Gulfport is hard to say and depends on how much skin the dancers will show (they can't show too much), the alcoholic content of the beer and wine Nance will serve and what section of Gulfport's city code you look at.
And he would like to serve alcohol. That juice bar thing, "was only because of Harrison County law."
This story was originally published March 14, 2016 at 6:28 PM with the headline "Strip club, juice bar combination moving business plans to Gulfport ."